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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616451">rend and wring yourself open</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpace/pseuds/halfpace'>halfpace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ao no Exorcist Chapter 128, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, that’s it really.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:40:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616451</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpace/pseuds/halfpace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a bowl of gumbo.</p><p>Or, there are actions in place of unspoken words, and vulnerability is a killer, sometimes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Okumura Rin &amp; Okumura Yukio, Okumura Rin &amp; Suguro "Bon" Ryuuji, Okumura Yukio &amp; Suguro "Bon" Ryuuji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>rend and wring yourself open</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts with a bowl of gumbo.</p><p>Well, to be fair, it starts all the way back with Satan himself incarnating in an artificially-made human clone and impregnating a human woman. It continues with the birth of her twin sons and the devil’s blue flames wreaking havoc around Japan. It continues with them growing up like regular human boys, more or less, but one of them less than more. And it continues with a quarrel between brothers that goes, and goes, and goes—</p><p>—and in the cold of the new year, residing somewhere next to something as mundane as a boot stepping in snow and the lack of moisture in the winter air, at the same time next to something as odd as joining and betraying a secret organization and traveling back in time, it stops.</p><p>There it stops, when the Antichrist and his twin almost-Antichrist brother find themselves passing out on top of some random platform of a collapsed airship, white noise buzzing in their eardrums, and their psyches exhausted from running through the mazes in their bruised bodies.</p><p>When Rin opens his eyes again he wakes up in a tent, almost not remembering anything from the hours prior. But he quickly comes to his senses, looking around and panicking when he doesn’t see his brother on the futon next to him, so he throws the blanket off his body and jumps out of the tent with a shout of his name—</p><p>—<em>holy shit, everyone else is here? </em> </p><p>He stands in shock as he sees the rest of his friends, all living, all breathing, all moving in front of him. How long as it been, it feels like <em> ages— </em></p><p>Konekomaru quickly turns and voices a small gasp after noticing Rin’s presence behind him. “Okumura! Are you alright?”</p><p>Ryuuji turns, too. “Good morning, Okumura.”</p><p>“Mornin’,” Izumo chimes in from behind him with a small wave.</p><p>“You’re all… here!” Rin stammers. He can’t help the huge grin creeping up his face and the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, and he lets out a cry. “It’s been so long!” he says, pulling Konekomaru into a headlock and rubbing his buzz-cut head. Oh, how he <em> missed </em> doing that. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”</p><p>Konekomaru, surprised but glad to see his friend again, chuckles and stammers out his own response. “Yeah, I survived.”</p><p>“You’re acting like it’s been years,” Ryuuji says with a roll of his eyes, but it doesn’t take a genius out of the exwires to tell there’s heart in his tone. </p><p>Kuro jumps onto Rin’s shoulder in all his Sikh cat gracefulness, immediately looking for affection and rubbing his face onto Rin’s cheek, and Rin’s reminded it’s kind of hilarious how he’s so much like an actual house feline. “Rin! I did my best to help!” his voice echoes in Rin’s head.</p><p>“Thanks, Kuro!” Rin says. He looks over to his friends. “Anyway, um… where’s Yukio?”</p><p>Ryuuji and Konekomaru look over into the distance without a word, and Rin’s eyes find exactly what they’re looking at to see Yukio standing over on the rise of a small hill in front of them.</p><p>“Yukio,” Rin says when he’s in earshot, footprints in the snow behind him. He carefully lifts up the key Mephisto had given him.</p><p>“Rin…” Yukio replies when he turns to look at his brother.</p><p>“Let’s go into the past together,” Rin says once Yukio’s gaze meets his. “Father Fujimoto and mom made mistakes too. And I’ve made a thousand more mistakes than you,” he falters slightly, “b— but I try to make up for it a little, you know? Anyway, um, you’ll understand if you come back with me—“</p><p>“Thank you, Rin.” Yukio turns to look into the distance again. “But I don’t think I will.”</p><p>“Why not?!” Rin yells in shock. “Why wouldn’t you?”</p><p>Yukio’s chest has been hollow since long, long ago— he lodged a bullet in his own ribs and let it live there. But he guesses now his chest has burst, the bullet’s out and he lays on the operation table, awaiting resurrection and his heart doesn’t feel so lacking in blood, anymore.</p><p>“I thought if I knew the past,” Yukio starts with a sigh. “And didn’t rely on anyone, and behaved correctly, and was strong… that the pain would go away. But I was wrong,” he says. Rin looks at him wide-eyed.</p><p>“I’m the source of my own suffering, and I can’t forgive myself. But that’s what I want to do,” he pauses for a second, “So I won’t go.”</p><p>“Oh… okay,” Rin says. “I can understand that.”</p><p>Because he can and he does. He does because he’s the same brother who stayed up with Yukio as a kid those nights when they felt like they were the only people in the world. He’s the same brother who cooks his brother meals to show he’s here for him and he cares, who’s grown wary with concern in the past few months and only wants the best for his younger twin.</p><p>“But tell me… what were father Fujimoto and our mother like?” Yukio asks.</p><p>Rin’s eyes brighten and he smiles.</p><p>“They were super cool!” he says, and feels a small twinge of deja vu. “Mom died protecting us… and she wanted us to get along.”</p><p>“Oh, really?”</p><p>“Uh-huh!”</p><p>“<em>Oi!</em>” Ryuuji shouts from the bottom of the hill, and the twins turn. “I got us breakfast!”</p><p>“Awesome!” Rin says and jumps up from his squat, beginning to walk back down. “Let’s go, I’m starving.”</p><p>“Rin,” Yukio calls, still atop the hill.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“I’m sorry I shot you in the head so many times,” Yukio says.</p><p>Rin nods. “No problem. Sorry for punching you.”</p><p>The two of them sit down to eat, and Yukio suddenly feels a lot farther away than he actually is. He stares down into space and all the noise around him feels like it’s <em> far </em> compared to his heartbeat in his ears, beating with the volume of a taiko drum. His breaths feel like they’re going short and oh he feels kind of <em> dizzy, </em> what was it that he’s eaten in the past eighteen hours because he feels it might come back up—</p><p>“—‘bout you, Okumura-sensei?”</p><p>Yukio’s startlingly anchored back into reality and his breath hitches. “Uh. What?” </p><p>“How much do you want?” Ryuuji says, gesturing the ladle towards the pot of gumbo.</p><p>“Um… just a moderate helping,” Yukio says with another loud beat of his heart and his memory suddenly returns to that day during their winter break, standing in the hallway of a house in Kyoto with the feeling of a gun in his hand pressing into his student’s chin, and he feels like everything around him is just background noise again.</p><p>“Here, Okumura-sensei,” said student says as he stretches out his arm to hand him a small bowl with stew.</p><p>“Um, Suguro,” he grits his teeth, “about what happened in Kyoto during new years, I’m really—“</p><p>And Ryuuji must’ve noticed <em> something </em> (whatever he did, Yukio doesn’t know himself) because his attempt to clear the air doesn’t misfire at all. “Hey, y’know what?” he sighs out.</p><p>Yukio looks at him, reluctant. Rin’s gaze is curious in comparison, a bit more than everybody else’s.</p><p>“Sometimes, calling one of you <em> Okumura, </em> and the other Okumura<em>-sensei </em> … can get <em> kinda </em> confusing,” he says, slightly groaning out the ‘i’ sound in ‘kinda.’</p><p>“I know what you mean,” Konekomaru says with a nod.</p><p>“So, from now on,” Ryuuji begins. “It’s just Rin—“ he gestures towards one twin, bowl still in hand and careful as to not spill any soup, “—and Yukio,” he finishes with a small smile, gesturing towards the other. “Is that fine with you two?” </p><p>Yukio’s eyes widen in shock. “Huh?”</p><p>The truth is he’s <em> vulnerable </em> on the operation table. The words aren’t anything grandiose, not at all; but considering what he’s done in these past few months and especially these <em> days, </em> Yukio’s shaken off his feet. It’s a stark reminder he’s only sixteen, the only people who call him by first name are Rin and Shiemi who he’s been close to for a very long time, yet here stands somebody else— a mere student who in reality, isn’t any less than him. Someone who, despite his rugged appearance clad in a goatee and an undercut and piercings all over both his ears, has shown nothing but kindness with every action he takes. And here it sits, as he holds the small bowl of gumbo in his calloused yet careful hands; the acceptance of an apology that Yukio didn’t get to word.</p><p>“Huuuh?” Rin bursts into laughter, face flushed and eyes shut tight. “That’s—“ he’s interrupted when happy giggles pour out of him, “—of course you can!”</p><p>For Rin it’s a blunt reassurance. The action sits in the air between them and he’s reminded of how Ryuuji never hated him for being Satan’s son, not at all; just that he thought Rin didn’t <em> trust </em> him, that he kept the liability to himself. He’s being treated as a weapon by the higher-ups, but Ryuuji’s never seen him as anything but human. Despite all the damage that night did to him and his family— despite Rin’s upbringing and even his entire childhood where he was seen as a monster— Ryuuji’s kindness grounds it into him, into <em> both </em> of them, that he cares for them as individuals. Trust settles with the words, and it runs as natural as blood.</p><p>There’s a standing point, here, where it all winds down and feels safe.</p><p>“So, here you go,” Ryuuji hands the younger twin his soup and with a bigger smile he says, “Yukio.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay…” Yukio’s eyes water and his face flushes as he takes the bowl from Ryuuji’s hand, looking down. “…Thank you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>do you know how fucking good a blue exorcist chapter has to be to get me to write something about it after like a whole YEAR AND A HALF of hyperfixating on and writing about other things [gif of the dog standing on a shaking bucket]</p><p>also just know that if i could find a fan scanlation up to date w aoex i would’ve used that dialogue instead of the one from viz... not that it matters that much tho i think the overall message got across pretty well</p><p>anyways thank u for reading here’s my stupid little <a href="https://twitter.com/marseids/">twitter</a> although i’m focused on jujutsu kaisen at the moment</p></blockquote></div></div>
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